Daily infections hovering near record level

The pandemic showed no sign of relenting Tuesday, as health authorities reported 4,309 new coronavirus cases, just 31 short of a new record.

Greece broke a record last week, reporting 4,340 new cases of Covid-19 on March 29.

According to the National Organization for Public Health (EODY), there were a further 79 deaths, bringing the total to 8,532, while the number of intubated patients stood at 751.

Attica, Greece’s most populous region, remains the epicenter of the pandemic with 1,883 new cases, with the northern port city of Thessaloniki reporting 622 new cases, and Achaia in the northwest Peloponnese reporting 135 new cases.

The reported new cases were significantly more than Monday’s, which came to 1,866; however, substantially more tests were carried out.

On Monday, there were 16,332 tests with a positivity rate of 11.43 percent, while on Tuesday, despite there being more cases, there were a total of 75,182 tests with a positivity rate of 5.7 percent.

Meanwhile, infectious diseases expert Sotiris Tsiodras, one of the government’s top scientific advisers on fighting Covid-19, sounded the alarm Tuesday that younger ages are also at risk.

“The coronavirus has been affecting people between the ages of 20 and 50 lately,” he said during a lecture Tuesday, adding that “we will continue to take action until the vaccination program is completed.”

Referring to concerns over the AstraZeneca vaccine, he noted that “if you contract the coronavirus, you have 1/64 chance of suffering a blood clot, whereas your chance of having a blood clot after getting the AstraZeneca vaccine is 1/100,000.”

He stressed that cases of thrombosis that have been attributed to the AstraZeneca vaccine concern 1 person in 100,000, “in the worst-case scenario.”

“We are not opposed to drug vigilance and targeted research; however, we need to address the huge comparative benefit of vaccination,” he added.